We spent our Saturday over at the Minneapolis Gift Market and came away somewhat energized, as we always do after these kind of events, as well as a little bit troubled – kind of a weird combination, but then – times are weird. The tri-annual Mpls show is pretty small and easily covered in a […]
There is no question that manufacturers and importers have some very real and difficult challenges in this economy. The retailers continue to hammer their wholesale costs lower, while at the same time production suppliers and overseas factories are ratcheting up prices due to rapidly rising material and labor costs. Even shipping has gone through the […]
The local morning news did a little piece yesterday on the Christmas displays that are already going up in some stores in the UK – a tad early, perhaps? Better start buying, there are only 140 shopping days left… It does bring to mind the subject of why people buy product, a subject that should […]
(I hope you are old enough to remember “Blowin’ in The Wind”, and if not, well, skip the title and get back to geometry class.) We have been hearing a lot lately about the ongoing erosion of the “flat art” projects. By flat art I mean that group of products that are not 3D, or […]
How is it that computers know to self destruct at the worst possible moment? Just as we are leaving for the Atlanta show the main office computer implodes and will not allow any of the CS3 programs to open. Not good. The backup drives are locked up in our house and inaccessible. Then our travel […]
We just finished up 4 days in Atlanta at the gift market and are quite happy to have a ton of follow-up to do – it was a really good show. We went into this market with more appointments than ever before, 3.5 days of running from one end of the place (three buildings, 14 […]
If you ever delve into systems analysis you will find wide variety in the definition and application of something called the “feedback loop”. The specifics can vary wildly depending on the type of system, however in every feedback loop, information about the effect of some action (the input data) is by some mechanism returned to […]
I love to write down snippets of conversation that seem particularly penetrating or insightful, a habit I picked up from a college roommate who would do it at parties and then read them back at the end of the night…not particularly discerning statements but always hysterical. Trade shows are generally fertile ground for new tidbits […]
Yesterday’s CBS Sunday Morning program had a nice segment on Norman Rockwell, in particular the Steven Spielberg and George Lucas private collections that are now on exhibit at the Smithsonian, and how these two giants of film were so greatly influenced by his paintings. For those of us that grew up seeing his illustrations almost […]
We are always amused whenever the latest announcement is made by some manufacturer that some celebrity is now licensed for…potatoes, mattresses, handbags, furniture…go ahead and pick one, it really doesn’t matter. The truth is that a fair number of these “celebrity licensors” have nothing to do with the product, and I would not be surprised […]